Attitudes towards science: a review of the literature and its implications

This article offers a review of the major literature about attitudes to science and its implications over the past 20 years. It argues that the continuing decline in numbers choosing to study science at the point of choice requires a research focus on students? attitudes to science if the nature of the problem is to be understood and remediated. Starting from a consideration of what is meant by attitudes to science, it considers the problems inherent to their measurement and what is known about students' attitudes towards science and the many factors of influence such as gender, teachers, curricula, cultural and other variables. The literature itself points to the crucial importance of gender and the quality of teaching. Given the importance of the latter we argue that there is a greater need for research to identify those aspects of science teaching that make school science engaging for pupils. In particular, a growing body of research on motivation offers important pointers to the kind of classroom environment and activities that might raise pupils' interest in studying school science and a focus for future research

Improving Retention of Science Student Teachers

Our on-going research aims to try and find out why some Science graduates on one year (PGCE) teacher training courses are not successful in completing the course. The course itself has been judged ‘Outstanding’ (Ofsted, 2010), so we have focused on the student teachers (trainees). Some key characteristics of trainees ‘at risk’ of being unsuccessful were identified in a variety of ways, including data analysis of records for trainees who left the course early and those who successfully completed the course, focus groups, questionnaires and case studies. Loss of trainees during PGCE courses appears to be a characteristic across many providers of initial teacher education for Science in the UK. Key factors emerging include gender, age, previous experiences/careers, support (or otherwise) of family/partner, caring issues (children/parents), subject knowledge, attendance at a subject knowledge enhancement course and more. If characteristics of ‘at risk’ trainees can be identified, strategies can be put into place to identify applicants, who might be at risk, at the selection stage and to support them during the course to reduce the drop-out rate. Recent work, described in the paper, appears to be improving our retention. Further research is needed to confirm and extend our current approach, which could, perhaps, be applied in other institutions and across other disciplines

WOW Factors in Secondary Science

Booklet of exciting practicals to do with Secondary school pupils. Each activity tested and written up by a Secondary PGCE or GTP student; some updated by other students in the following year. Templates all follow the same pattern and include risk assessments, materials needed, links to the curriculum et

Characterization of the unfolding, refolding, and aggregation pathways of two protein implicated in cataractogenesis : human gamma D and human gamma S crystallin

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Biology, 2005.Includes bibliographical references.Human [gamma]D crystallin (H[gamma]D-Crys) and human [gamma]S crystallin (H[gamma]S-Crys), are major proteins of the human eye lens and are components of cataracts. H[gamma]D-Crys is expressed early in life in the lens cortex while H[gamma]S-Crys is expressed throughout life in the lens epithelial cells. Both are primarily β-sheet proteins made up of four Greek keys separated into two domains and display 69% sequence similarity. The unfolding and refolding of H[gamma]D-Crys and H[gamma]S-Crys have been characterized as a function of guanidinium hydrochloride (GdnHCl) concentration at neutral pH and 37⁰C, using intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence to monitor in vitro folding. Equilibrium unfolding and refolding experiments with GdnHCl showed unfolded protein is more fluorescent than its native counter-part despite the absence of metal or ion-tryptophan interactions in both of these proteins. This fluorescence quenching may influence the lens response to ultraviolet light radiation or the protection of the retina from ambient ultraviolet damage. Wild-type H[gamma]D-Crys exhibited reversible refolding above 1.0 M GdnHCl. Aggregation of refolding intermediates of H[gamma]D-Crys was observed in both equilibrium and kinetic refolding processes. The aggregation pathway competed with productive refolding at denaturant concentrations below 1.0 M GdnHCl, beyond the major conformational transition region. H[gamma]S-Crys, however, exhibited a two-state reversible unfolding and refolding with no evidence of aggregation. Atomic force microscopy of H[gamma]D-Crys samples under aggregating conditions revealed ordered fiber structures that could recruit H[gamma]S-Crys to the aggregate. To provide fluorescence reporters(cont.) for each quadrant of H[gamma]D-Crys, triple mutants each containing three tryptophan to phenylalanine substitutions and one native tryptophan have been constructed and expressed. Trp68-only and Trp 156-only retained the quenching pattern of wild-type H[gamma]D-Crys. During equilibrium refolding/unfolding, the tryptophan fluorescence signals indicated that domain I (W42-only and W68-only) unfolded at lower concentrations of GdnHCl than domain II (W130-only and W156-only). Kinetic analysis of both the unfolding and refolding of the triple mutant tryptophan proteins identified an intermediate along the H[gamma]D-Crys folding pathway with domain I unfolded and domain II intact. This species is a candidate for the partially folded intermediate in the in vitro aggregation pathway of H[gamma]D-Crys. An N143D deamination post-translational modification has recently been identified in H[gamma]S-Crys that is present in high concentrations in insoluble protein removed from cataractous lenses. The presence of the N143D mutation did not significantly affect the equilibrium or kinetic properties of H[gamma]S-Crys indicating that this mutation is unlikely to be involved in protein destabilization during cataract formation in vivo. The method in which H[gamma]D-Crys aggregates on its own and engages neighboring molecules in the polymerization process in vitro may provide insight into the process of cataractogenesis in vivo.by Melissa Sue Kosinski-Collins.Ph.D

Driving and sustaining culture change in professional sport performance teams: A grounded theory

Objectives As part of the recent upsurge of work on management and organizational factors in elite sports teams, researchers have focused on the team management-led creation and regulation of high performing cultures. The purpose of this study was to therefore add to a recently developed model of culture change best practice in Olympic sports teams, as led and perceived by incoming performance directors, and conceptualize culture change best practice in professional sports teams, as led and perceived by incoming team managers. Design and method A pragmatic research philosophy and corresponding grounded theory methodology were used to generate a practically-meaningful model of this culture change process from the perspective of UK-based professional team managers. Results Perceived best practice in team manager-led culture change was found to involve a finite phase of initial evaluation, planning, and impact adjoined to the enduring management of a holistic, integrated, and dynamic social system. With the former process acting as the catalyst for successful change, this model revealed that optimal change was felt to primarily rely on the constant acquisition, negotiation, and alignment of internal and external stakeholder perceptions. Conclusions Based on the model's principles, the optimization of professional team culture is defined by a manager's initial actions and never definitively achieved but rather constantly constructed and re-constructed in complex social and power dynamics. Beyond providing a conceptual backdrop for continued research in this area, the model is also a tool on which the practice of professional team managers and their supporting sport psychologists can be based

Troubling ideas for widening participation: how higher education institutions in England engage with research in their access agreements.

This article explores how higher education institutions in England engage with research in their access agreements. Through an analysis of access agreements from 2014-15 to 2016-17, a picture of how research is understood, undertaken and documented emerges. A lexical analysis of the texts was used to establish the different ways research is being referred to or funded as part of the access agreement process. The analysis shows a productive relationship between national policy and institutional activity. But there appears to be a lack of infrastructure at an institutional and sector level to join up sustained and rigorous research with widening participation activity and policy. This means that, even after ten years of access agreements, widening participation is not fully embedded into the academic practice of higher education. We argue that research undertaken as part of the access agreement process can provide much needed evidence of impact and situate activity within an institution-wide context. However, we also suggest that widening participation research has the potential to offer productive troubling ideas to dominant rhetoric and, in so doing, shape new ways of thinking about, and doing, widening participation within institutions and across the sector